The growing demand for facsimile services has generated an increasing need for access to facsimile machines in public places. Despite this need, store owners and other operators of public spaces have not had the ability to provide these services with their existing facsimile machines.
The growing demand for facsimile services has also effected businesses. Although facsimile services are a great convenience, many businesses have not been able to keep accurate records of their facsimile transmissions and as a result have been unable to recoup the expense of their facsimile services.
Prior systems have been unsuccessful in meeting the needs of the public and of businesses for several reasons. Many of these prior systems involve purchasing a new facsimile machine or modifying extensively an existing facsimile machine, however most businesses already own a facsimile machine and do not want to purchase another or to modify their existing machine. Additionally, many of these prior systems are inaccurate because they count pages by monitoring with sensors when a page has passed through and do not catch when pages are taped together. As a result, two pages may be transmitted, but only one page will be accounted for by these systems. Further, many of these prior systems are not user friendly, because the patron is unaware of the cost of a facsimile transmission until after the document is scanned and/or transmitted.
Accordingly, there is a need for an accurate method and/or apparatus for logging or identifying the transmission or reception of each page by a facsimile machine.